Category: Pets

Time for another indoor aquatics update! The 190-gal main tank in the living room has fared quite well. In fact, the only real change it’s undergone apart from maintenance schedule adjustments is in the fish lineup. Most recently, we had a murder. But first, a little backstory leading up to it…

We got an Electric Blue Mbuna from one of Michelle’s friend’s about 4 years ago, IIRC. They were moving and could not keep him, so we gladly gave “Flipper” a new home. The only problem was he’s an African cichlid, and our tank has South American cichlids, so they are not exactly compatible. Exactly what that means and how it plays out depends on several different factors, but suffice it to say they just don’t like each other. The tank was lightly stocked and the cichlid population at the time including an Oscar and a Jack Dempsey were all nearly the same size range, so with little recourse I just watched to see how things progressed.

To make a long story even longer, The Oscar and Jack got too big and aggressive, so they were euthanized about a year ago. The Firemouth pair was busily spawning during that time, so there was alot of social unrest, but Flipper held his own throughout. The Firemouth parents also became large and aggressive towards everything else in the tank, so they eventually got the boot, as well. When the dust finally settled at the end of 2017, the fish lineup included 1 Chinese Algae Eater (oldest/original member of the group), 3 Figure-8 Puffers, 5 Pictus Cats, 1 smaller Firemouth of unknown lineage, 11 juvenile Firemouths and Flipper – a quite small load on this tank, with plenty of room for all, you would think. At ~5″ in length, Flipper is actually the biggest fish in the tank at this point and things seemed to have been quite peaceful lately.

But apparently he’s no match for 11 Firemouths less than half his size, because I’m pretty sure they killed him after finding his picked-clean skeleton on the bottom one morning last week. Must’ve been a frenzied gangland-style killing that night, cleaned up by the catfish, no doubt.

Our little Skipperke Shelly, gave up the ghost last night. She lived to be 14 and was just a great little pup – never any trouble and ruled the zoo like a queen for many years. The worst she ever did was getting in the bathroom trash can and chewing up Phoebe’s underpants. I thought that was great, assuming it to be an excellent lesson to learn about picking up her room. Nice try Shelly!

Despite starting to lose her eyesight to cataracts a couple years ago she was still getting around quite well in familiar territory. As recently as this past spring she would go with Jax and me on what I call “the Creek Walk.” A few times a week when I was up for it, we’d take a little loop around the neighborhood along NoName creek. She really seemed to enjoy it as long as we stopped every so often and made a little noise so she could hear us. But lately she’s not been wanting to go.

Bye-bye Shelly – we’ll miss you!

Jax got his mountaineering done with Michelle and the girls (Francie, Alli and Avery) on a little sightseeing tour near Boulder yesterday. He also got to go in a pizza shop and and a smoke shop on Pearl Street. Talk about your lucky dogs…

This was a rare catch.  Kiki, the older grey female on the left, barely tolerates Marshall, the young tomcat.  Maybe they are finally getting acquainted after about 5 years(?).

Especially in the Firemouth Cichlid realm of our tiny little aquatic animal kingdom:

They spawned about 3 weeks ago, and it’s been hell for the others in that tank ever since. I moved the smaller guys downstairs but the remaining 7 fish, including a Jack Dempsey of equal size to the mother Firemouth have been pinned to the far west 6 inches of the tank ever since. At one point early on they were being held against their will in just the one top-rear corner.

My fish guy in Boulder says Firemouths are pretty good about being aggressive towards their tankmates compared some others, and nobody’s been hurt yet, so far so good. There were literally probably over 500 fry initially. It looks like about half of them have since been predated. We’ll see how many remain to be captured and sent off to the fish store before they overrun this 190-gallon tank.

Sometimes I just can’t resist taking a few more morning sunlit aquarium shots:

That last one is the shrimp tank. You can see the little reddish cherry shrimp if you look real close at full resolution. Goldfish finally got some new buddies. Four new little ones brings their count back up to ten – where they started almost five years ago. The guppy tank did not make this cut because those little forkers have refused to spawn for the past few months. I will try getting some more females in there and see what happens…

I waited to move the goldfish into their basement aquarium winter home until the last possible day this year. The pond was doing so well I was reluctant to move them. Water was cold (45F), weather is going bad/cold here for the next few days, and they appeared to be dipping into hibernation, so it was time to get it done. A few of them attempted to hide by slithering into the leaves on the bottom while I was trying to net them. Some pond-fish people let their Koi and Goldfish hibernate over the winter, but I’m reluctant to try that. It’s liable to get very cold at times, so the waterfall will surely freeze and cause related problems. We lost one to predators I assume, sometime in just the past month. I counted 7 before leaving for New Hampshire, but there were only 6 yesterday. Maybe I’ll get them a few new friends in the spring.

Apparently this dog has me pretty well trained. I can almost put the frisbee where I want to, now that the shoulder is all healed up:

The live fish-food raising project is coming along well, albeit slowly after a year so far. Turns out attempting to raise shrimp, snails and guppies all in the same aquarium is not a great idea. Apparently the guppies eat the shrimp fry, so the guppies get a new tank. Also, the guppies seem to be not breeding very quickly. They have slowed down these past few months, with only around 2-3 new babies a month showing up lately. We’ll see how they do without the shrimp. Who knows, maybe the shrimp were eating the baby guppies.
Anyway, the really cool thing about the new 60-gallon is it’s an acrylic “Uniquarium” – basically a clear plastic tank with the filtration system built right in. Sounded like a good idea and seems to be working well so far after about a month in service. All the various pieces of equipment (air stones, pump, heater, etc.) are hidden in the tank’s rear compartment(s), giving it a much cleaner, un-cluttered appearance. Cleaning the filter itself looks to be pretty simple – just pull out the filter pads, rinse and replace.
“Man Cave Remodel 2017” project is now in full swing! Next phase involves some new sound equipment and rebuilding the audio portion of the basement entertainment system from scratch. It’s been cannibalized for amps and basically fell into disuse for probably at least the last 5 years.

A Few More Pics

The Convicts spawned again. Last time was almost two years ago in the old tank. I guess they finally became comfortable enough in their new environment to go for it. Should be more interesting watching the fry grow this time around. Mom and Dad are quite busy keeping predators at bay and digging them out of the gravel when they get stuck. Pretty cool stuff:

..Is his name:

He was a 7-week old mutt when we got him from a lady selling puppies in the Walmart parking lot 2 days before Phoebe was discharged from the hospital.  Rumored to be a Springer Spaniel/Black Shepherd mix, I believe that is probably accurate.  We saw the Mom Spaniel at his birthplace when we went to pick him up, and the color is pretty obvious.

I expect he may get fairly large, considering the disproportionate size of his head.  Shelly and the cats did not take long to accept him into the fold.  Marshall is quite curious about him, shelly has started full-on dog play and only Kiki remains just annoyed with our little bundle of playful energy named Jax.